US ebook sales breakdown by genre

[fjtorres]

The latest author earnings report dropped recently with its deepest look yet at the state of the US ebook (and print and audio) publishing world, 1million titles deep, and it mostly confirms previous reports about the rise of Indie, Inc and the fade of the BPHs influence.

The full report and all its many confirmations (yes, tradpub is not only the realm of legacy publishing practices, it is also becoming the realm of legacy authors) can be found here:

http://authorearnings.com/report/may-2016-report/

However, the part I'm focusing on is buried deep, past the report and its sobering addendum, into the comments, where Data Guy calmly dropped this not so little chart:

http://authorearnings.com/wp-content...enre-units.png
(It's probably too big to embed here and shrinking it might impact readability.)

1- romance makes up around 40% of all ebook sales, with non-traditional publishing taking up about two thirds
2- SF&F makes up around 15%, with nearly 60% non-traditional
3- Thrillers around 14% and 35%
4- Mystery 9% and 40%
5- LitFic about 6% and, say, 8% but with the kicker that APub titles make up nearly half.
6- the rest, about 14% is other: non-fiction, coloring books, erotica, etc

So it seems romance and SF &F readers really love Indie, Inc. (Explains a lot, really.)

Mystery is worth keeping an eye on as it used to be a laggard in ebook sales in general and Indies in particular and it has shown the second biggest shift since 2014 (slightly different chart, similar ratios):

http://authorearnings.com/wp-content...her-type-5.png

The biggest change, however, seems to be in (gulp!) Literary Fiction where Indies are now a visible presence but, as pointed out above, the biggest publisher by far is Amazon.

Remembering that AmazonPublishing is also by far the biggest source of translated fiction in the US and, well, they seem to be a real force on the "cultural" side of publishing. They are actually looking a lot like the "Classic" publishing houses of the 50's and 60's, from before the multinationals took over Manhattan publishing.

Very interesting chart, that one.

Oh, and the rest of the report and addendum is also very much worth checking out.
Did I mention it's eyepopping?

For this report, we didn’t stop at 200,000 listed category best-sellers. Instead, we also had the AE spider crawl through each of their also-boughts, and pull data on every single one of *those* titles, as well. And then we had it crawl the Amazon author pages for all of those books, too, and pull data on every single other title each author had for sale on Amazon. We ended up with daily sales data on a million of Amazon’s Kindle ebooks — nearly a third of all titles listed in the US Kindle store. We captured practically all of the titles selling with any frequency whatsoever, the vast majority of the infrequently-selling titles, and many, many of the non-selling. Our dataset includes:

Nearly every single Kindle book selling 1 or more copy per day. (98.5% of them)
90% of all Kindle titles selling at least 2-3 copies a week
81% of all Kindle titles selling 1 or more copy a week
64% of all Kindle titles selling 2 or more copies a month
32% of all Kindle titles listed in the Amazon US Kindle store.
With this report, Author Earnings is now capturing and breaking down a full 82% of daily Amazon Kindle ebook sales. Even better, we’ve been able to capture the majority of the previously unmeasured “dark matter” sales — whose composition we had before only speculated about. Well, now we know.

They're getting so deep into Amazon's data it wouldn't surprise me if Amazon took some action. They are only publishing minimized data and percentages but the raw data they collect gives them a window into Amazon's deeper secrets.

For example, asked about whether Indies did coloring books over at TPV, it took Data Guy but minutes to dig this out:

http://www.thepassivevoice.com/2016/...comment-358072

Here’s what the overall Amazon stats on coloring books look like (sorry for the format):

mysql> select publishertype, sum(salesperday), sum(dailyrevenue), sum(authordailyrevenue) from kindlebooks where formattype = ‘print’ and title like ‘%coloring%’ group by publishertype;
+——————+——————+——————–+————————-+
| publishertype | sum(salesperday) | sum(dailyrevenue) | sum(authordailyrevenue) |
+——————+——————+——————–+————————-+
| bigfive | 1147 | 10051.55996966362 | 1168.2080109715462 |
| indie | 6128 | 39226.79976797104 | 13455.987939553801 |
| small/medium pub | 5441 | 39177.579954624176 | 4462.821904197335 |
| uncategorized | 693 | 5878.619947195053 | 566.7715984284878 |
+——————+——————+——————–+————————-+
4 rows in set (3.11 sec)

Doesn’t look like Amazon imprints have gotten in on the coloring-book thing yet. ��

Dude's dangerous.

[Froide]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The latest author earnings report dropped recently with its deepest look yet at the state of the US ebook (and print and audio) publishing world

Thanks for this; fascinating.

[shalym]

Here's the images, attached rather than embedded.

Shari

[theducks]

Do the readers really love indie?
Or was it a simple effect of the Trad Pub only publishing-distributing. What made the cut (not that I blame them... It is about making MONEY ) was what was available to the user. (There were always 'Vanity' presses, but someone had to fund the run)

e-publishing just opened another path to the end user that was previously closed or limited due to initial expense.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by theducks

Do the readers really love indie?
Or was it a simple effect of the Trad Pub only publishing-distributing. What made the cut (not that I blame them... It is about making MONEY ) was what was available to the user. (There were always 'Vanity' presses, but someone had to fund the run)

e-publishing just opened another path to the end user that was previously closed or limited due to initial expense.

Or it could simply be that the Trad Pub doesn't publicize their numbers, so the estimates that these analysis report reflect more of the numbers that they have access to, rather than the numbers they don't have access to. Number one rule in the business world, never confuse the report with reality. Ever since I read authors who are willing to talk about their actual numbers say that the estimates are not accurate, I've tended to take such reports with a big grain of salt.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by theducks

Do the readers really love indie?
Or was it a simple effect of the Trad Pub only publishing-distributing. What made the cut (not that I blame them... It is about making MONEY ) was what was available to the user. (There were always 'Vanity' presses, but someone had to fund the run)

e-publishing just opened another path to the end user that was previously closed or limited due to initial expense.

It's not just the cost that has Indies swamping non-legacy tradpub ebooks: it is also the content and the abundance.

Tradpub typically limits most authors to 2 titles a year per pen-name and don't like it when authors stray too far from the silo they've been pigeonholed into.

Why do you think Nora Roberts, for one, had to use an alias for her "...in death" series? Prolific authors no longer need to limit themselves to the slots the publisher has available and can wander as far afield as their muses and fans allow.

From a reader standpoint Indies deliver more material at a lower cost, more often. Once you find an author you like there's less waiting. Also, the underserved subgenres are really blooming in indieland. There's a whole bunch of categories that Tradpub considered too niche or too risky to tackle that are booming these days. The economics of Indie, Inc allow serving those fans profitably.

So yes, for math-savvy authors, Indie means more money. But only because fans like what they get for *their* money. It takes two to tango, as Shakira used to say.

When you get down to it, the Indie revolution is about readers calling the shots by voting their wallets not some glass tower exec.

[MGlitch]

I think the next few years will be interesting. If authors see the benefits of going Indie, and Indie starts getting better authors producing more polished works, the trad. pubs will need to change their game or go under.

However if Indie opens the doors too wide and falls down the slippery slope of self pub "quality" it may be a different story.

Thus far the Indies seem to be playing it smart though, so I suspect it'll be trad. pubs who'll need to change rather than anything else.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

If authors see the benefits of going Indie, and Indie starts getting better authors producing more polished works, the trad. pubs will need to change their game or go under.
.

Did you notice the breakdown of authors by when they got started? There's a bunch of charts in the full report: from there is it pretty clear that around half the Indie authors actually selling books are hybrids or tradpub refugees. (In the appendix and the comments DG mentions the raw numbers of authors *not* selling books, for both Indie and tradpub. It ain't pretty. It also isn't terribly different for either side.) When Sturgeon said 90% of everything is crap he wasn't talking about Indies, you know. The only differences between Indie writers and tradpub writers is how they get their books to market and how much control they keep over their books and careers.

There's this myth running around that, for some mysterious reason, Indie book buyers have lower standards than tradpub buyers. That they buy "crappy" Indie books solely because they are cheaper. That is not a very polite thing to say. Not when over half of all ebooks sold in the US market are Indie.

Want to a quick way to know if a book, Indie or tradpub, is crap? Look at the publishing date and look at the rankings. If it's not buried in the rankings it's not crap. That simple.
It may not be great.
It probably won't be to your taste.
But it won't be crap.

Readers aren't stupid.
There is no shortage of good books at good prices so there is no reason to buy crap just because it is affordable. And with sales rankings, reviews, and above all, *free samples* and good return policies therd is no reason go get stuck with a bad book. And most readers don't.

There is an old joke about how God must love mosquitoes... because He made so many of them.

Well, it's no joke that ebook readers do love Indie published books... because they buy so many and keep buying them, in ever increasing numbers.

[Cinisajoy]

I know some that started as indie and are now hybrid. I know some that started as trad and are now indie. I know others that started trad and are now hybrid.
That is in 2 or 3 genres.
I know at least one that started indie and are now published by Amazon. The Amazon publishing side.

I know some that their pbook is big name and the ebook is indie.

I know some fabulous indies and I know others I wouldn't give you two cents for.
I also know one (hi Boyd) that went from nothing to doing good in Sci-fi.

[fjtorres]

For those skeptical of the Author Earnings statistical methodology Jane Friedman has a very good piece on a similar topic, based on tradpub ISBN data via Nielsen:

https://janefriedman.com/myth-print-...okstores-rise/

Pretty pictures, too.

3. Market share is drifting away from the Big Five publishers to small presses and self-publishers.

Nielsen’s latest report is very instructive. In this chart, we see how the share of Big Five publishers has declined by 12% over the last three years; small publishers and self-published authors have gained 23% market share combined. What’s even more astonishing is that Nielsen’s figures primarily give us a look at very traditional types of publishing, or books with ISBNs. There’s a whole universe of independent publishing that remains untracked because the titles don’t carry ISBNs—and most of those titles are not getting carried in your average bricks-and-mortar bookstore. They sell predominantly through Amazon.

Carry a big dose of skepticism, and look at possible underlying agendas, when you hear celebrations about print’s comeback.

That last sentence, from a tradpub veteran and insider is, well... interesting.

Anyway, since she has access to the full report, she knows the exact size of the coloring book boom. And it is double what I expected. 12m adult coloring books sold in 2015 v 1m in 2014 mean 11M added coloring books. (I'd estimated 5M from Publishers Weekly data.) That totally wipes out the 1 percent pbook gain they've been crowing about. In reality, text-based tradpub pbook sales *declined* along with tradpub ebooks.

No spiders involved in that report.

Two of the comments add good insight:

Vicki Weisfeld

Very helpful discussion. However, there is a common misinterpretation of the second chart. The text says “the share of Big Five publishers has declined by 12% over the last three years.” That’s incorrect. It has declined by 12 “percentage points.” The actual decline is 26%–1minus 34/46. That’s more than a quarter! Similarly, while self-published and very small publishers have gained 23 “percentage points” in market share, they have actually gained an astonishing 220%! You’ll see this easily if you note that 42% is more than twice 19%.

And:

Michael W. Perry

The current mess has a reason. ISBNs exist as barcodes for printed books much like the barcodes on soup cans. There was no reason to keep that system for ebooks. A much more rationale system could have replaced it, one where the barcode itself could have portions that would define the content, the version, the formating, and any DRM. Authors and publishers would only need to buy and register the publisher/content portion. They could assign the latter numbers themselves. Readers would benefit too. The content and version number would tell them they were getting the same ebook, with only the format differing. That’d have been a much better scheme.

It is the major publishers who drove the industry to stick with ISBNs even for digital versions. My hunch is that covertly Bowker made them an offer. It would grossly overprice small quantities of ISBNs to burden independent authors and small publishers, while still selling ISBNs cheaply in bulk to large publishers. Faced with a rapidly changing market, large publishers weren’t trying to win any niceness prize.

That’s backfired. The result has been that many ebooks are no longer tied to ISBNs, with Amazon not insisting on them and Smashwords offering its own set of ISBNs for authors to meet the demands of those on its distribution chain, such as Apple and B&N, who insist on ISBNs. Rather than stengthen ISBN, the scheme weakened it.

More at that source. And the discussions in those comments are ongoing.

Bottom line: readers are changing their buying habits and voting their wallets in new ways. Big winners: Indies, small presses, and coloring book publishers. (Most of which, BTW, are niche small presses.)

[Cinisajoy]

Quick thought on why traditional might be falling so much.
Libraries and used books. Heck if I want the latest whoever, all I have to do is wait and it will either be in the library or a used book store.
Also my mom bought a book new and I have bought one that at least 3 people will read.
So is it less people are reading traditional books or more people are reading the same copy?

[Fbone]

You have to keep in mind that Nielsen and the author's earning report are measuring two separate things. One records purchases and the other "sales". It's expected they would reach different conclusions.

Both reports require consistency from year to year and Nielsen/Bookscan, Amazon and AE have adjusted their methodology over the years.

I'm not saying one is right and the other wrong. But you can't compare one to the other or mention them both in the same context.

[fjtorres]

I did say the charts were different.

Now, if the difference were between 6% and 30% then one would have to wonder about the discrepancy. In this case it is mostly because Nielsen is working off ISBN data since 2013 and AS is including everything but only since 2014.

End result is the same.

Different approaches ut they both end up in the same neighborhood: readers are buying less BPH and more Indie and small tradpub. By a lot.
Exactly how much isn't all that critical, is it?

Does it matter if the BPHs are selling 26% less books or 30%?

[Fbone]

Again they are both calculating different items. One is purchases the other "sales" as defined by the retailer.

According to DG at AE, Amazon includes Kindle Firsts, Kindle Samsung, KDP Select monthly giveaways and KU as "sales" all of which are free to the reader.

Whereas Nielsen records what a reader purchased from a retailer with hard cash, a customer walked up to a cashier and plunked down $20 for their book. Nielsen doesn't count free stuff even if the author gets paid regardless if it has an ISBN number or not.

Neither report is right or wrong. They just are using different data available to them.

[fjtorres]

Both reports have different audiences: AE is for authors, Nielsen for publishers.

Publishers are interested in how much money they squeeze from readers, which is why they focus on reader-spend, dollar value of sales.

Authors are interested in how much money they get for their efforts and they don't care where it comes from, readers or somebody paying for the readers.

The one common denominator to both reports is unit sales, which happens to be the one thing relevant to readers. Look at both reports and they both detail how often readers *choose* to acquire Indie ebooks, how often they choose small tradpub, and how often they choose BPH.

And those choices are molding the evolution of the ebook market: what titles come to market, how they come to market, and who sells them. That last one is most relevant to us readers given the ongoing Nook implosion, Kobo's failure to gain traction, and the ongoing closures of small generic bookstores.

So yes, both reports aim at different audiences but since nobody is doing reports for readers we have to find our facts where we find them or trust the propaganda the establishment tries to pass as facts.

Everybody gets to believe whichever side they choose to believe.

Everybody looks after their interests. Me, I have a lot invested in ebooks, both hardwAre and contents so my interests lie with whoever is trying to build a big, robust ebook industry. Which means my interests are served by more ebooks coming to market through as many channels as possible, as cheaply as possible. Whatever side is helping that come to pass has my sympathy and support.

(Cause, yes, cheaper ebooks means I get to read more of them.)

That side is not the BPHs so I choose not to deal with them or believe their propaganda. And I take heart knowing I'm not alone and that the hegemony of the Glass tower multinationals is withering away.